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My two options are use Linux, binary nVidia drivers and a commercial game engine or use Windows. Which option sounds more open to you. Unless you can find me FOSS Drivers that support OpenGL 4+ and are competitive with windows performance and a game engine that is in the ballpark feature wise with Cryengine I don't have a third option.

Spending time and energy making FOSS better is what will win the war if you want to call it that. Insisting that everybody should use FOSS software all the time doesn't really do much in my experience except add noise to the conversation and scare off people who would otherwise benefit from and benefit the FOSS Community.

Interesting statement. And how exactly will FOSS software benefit from more proprietary software and more proprietary software users?

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Yes, we've got idTech3/4, but that's the engines... The big thing holding back games for Linux has been the platform capabilities (graphics, audio, control), market share, and the tools to create games.

Pretty much all Tech3 tools are available on linux, and most of Tech4 ones.

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Interesting statement. And how exactly will FOSS software benefit from more proprietary software and more proprietary software users?

The exact same way it benefits from anybody else. Users who need a few things that the FOSS world still doesn't provide can still donate money; spend time coding on, producing artwork for, translating, writing documentation, supporting or evangelising the FOSS projects they do like.

For instance, for work I need the nVidia binary drivers and Unigine and I wouldn't mind access to 3dstudio max and the adobe creative collection (I have to switch machines when I need to use those) but I also use and love KDE, KDevelop, Krita, Ardour, Wings3d, Blender, Mypaint, Freewheeling some of which I have contributed code, some to which I have contributed money and most to which I have contributed user support. KDevelop in particular I would hate to give up and it isn't available for windows.

I think it is more productive to think that building a successful FOSS project is more about building a healthy community than waging a war against the other.

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The exact same way it benefits from anybody else. Users who need a few things that the FOSS world still doesn't provide can still donate money; spend time coding on, producing artwork for, translating, writing documentation, supporting or evangelising the FOSS projects they do like.

For instance, for work I need the nVidia binary drivers and Unigine and I wouldn't mind access to 3dstudio max and the adobe creative collection (I have to switch machines when I need to use those) but I also use and love KDE, KDevelop, Krita, Ardour, Wings3d, Blender, Mypaint, Freewheeling some of which I have contributed code, some to which I have contributed money and most to which I have contributed user support. KDevelop in particular I would hate to give up and it isn't available for windows.

I think it is more productive to think that building a successful FOSS project is more about building a healthy community than waging a war against the other.

You see, I have no problems with people using closed source. I am using it myself out of necessity. But I don't see anything positive about it. In general FOSS software competes with its closed counterparts (think of drivers here for example). And more then often it is in an inferior position, due to its dependency on a user/contributer base. You are using the nVidia blob, so you will have less incentive to help with the noveau development, right? The same applies to other open source software like Blender and Co.

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You see, I have no problems with people using closed source. I am using it myself out of necessity. But I don't see anything positive about it. In general FOSS software competes with its closed counterparts (think of drivers here for example). And more then often it is in an inferior position, due to its dependency on a user/contributer base. You are using the nVidia blob, so you will have less incentive to help with the noveau development, right? The same applies to other open source software like Blender and Co.

I still see opensource drivers as being an advantage long term if they can be competitive feature/performance wise (if somebody passes a hat around I will put my money into it to pay somebody to spend more time working on it than they otherwise could spare). If I were not using the blob I would be using windows which would give me less incentive.

With Blender vs Max -- a max seat costs me 5000 a pop locally. I am not going to do that unless Blender simply can't do what I need to do or it saves so much time and I have so much work that the upgrades pay for themselves. Maya,Houdini,Modo and SoftImage are already is available for Linux, I am not using them for precisely the same reason (different sticker prices).

The other thing is that the source code in Blender is of practical not just ideological benefit to me (as I can and do program).

What I object to is all the negativity here when ever something that isn't foss gets mentioned. Its appears self righteous and it turns people off, do some research to see if there is a viable FOSS alternative and feel free to talk that up but don't tell me a project is shit just because of the license.

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I still see opensource drivers as being an advantage long term if they can be competitive feature/performance wise (if somebody passes a hat around I will put my money into it to pay somebody to spend more time working on it than they otherwise could spare). If I were not using the blob I would be using windows which would give me less incentive.

With Blender vs Max -- a max seat costs me 5000 a pop locally. I am not going to do that unless Blender simply can't do what I need to do or it saves so much time and I have so much work that the upgrades pay for themselves. Maya,Houdini,Modo and SoftImage are already is available for Linux, I am not using them for precisely the same reason (different sticker prices).

The other thing is that the source code in Blender is of practical not just ideological benefit to me (as I can and do program).

What I object to is all the negativity here when ever something that isn't foss gets mentioned. Its appears self righteous and it turns people off, do some research to see if there is a viable FOSS alternative and feel free to talk that up but don't tell me a project is shit just because of the license.

Wait, so you are basically looking for a cheap/gratis alternative for windows but feel annoyed by the license/ideology that comes with it?

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With Blender vs Max -- a max seat costs me 5000 a pop locally. I am not going to do that unless Blender simply can't do what I need to do or it saves so much time and I have so much work that the upgrades pay for themselves.

In my experience with a small game studio several years ago, it did make the difference. $5,000US was around two weeks of artist time (we paid above average). More than two weeks was lost due to both a combination of lack of training (_all_ professional 3D artists know Max or Maya, only a tiny subset seem to know Blender) and due to various issues with exporters and plugin development (at the time, Blender had just released its new Python API but had zero documentation on it and all howtos and videos were on the old version, but the newer version was require some features...). $5,000 would have been a _very cheap_ price to pay up front to avoid all that. If I could go back in time, I'd be willing to spend 3x that much.

That's not to say that the future can't be all Blender. It needs to put documentation as a primary goal (don't make a release with any single piece of the UI, feature set, or API is not properly documented, period) and it needs to do waaay better at propaganda in schools. Students getting tech certs or degrees prefer Max or Maya in many cases because that's what they were taught in school. If they were taught Blender as their primary tool, they'd probably prefer that.

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Wait, so you are basically looking for a cheap/gratis alternative for windows but feel annoyed by the license/ideology that comes with it?

I want a software set-up that works for me - that means juggling features, performance, budget and licensing concerns... I happen to like KDE better than windows or MacOSX regardless of price.

Did you miss the bit where I said I contribute code and support. I think that GPL is a great idea, it's the zealots that annoy me. Code, create art, write documentation, translate, help other users, show people the cool things you made and did are much more effective at getting people to try FOSS software than hanging around on forums being negative or chastising people for not being purist.

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In my experience with a small game studio several years ago, it did make the difference. $5,000US was around two weeks of artist time (we paid above average). More than two weeks was lost due to both a combination of lack of training (_all_ professional 3D artists know Max or Maya, only a tiny subset seem to know Blender) and due to various issues with exporters and plugin development (at the time, Blender had just released its new Python API but had zero documentation on it and all howtos and videos were on the old version, but the newer version was require some features...). $5,000 would have been a _very cheap_ price to pay up front to avoid all that. If I could go back in time, I'd be willing to spend 3x that much.

That's not to say that the future can't be all Blender. It needs to put documentation as a primary goal (don't make a release with any single piece of the UI, feature set, or API is not properly documented, period) and it needs to do waaay better at propaganda in schools. Students getting tech certs or degrees prefer Max or Maya in many cases because that's what they were taught in school. If they were taught Blender as their primary tool, they'd probably prefer that.

It largely depends on situation -> if I were starting out a game studio (this is possible). I would get the workflow down before hiring the artists making sure I had a functional pipeline. This happens to be a big part of my day job. I would probably look to Modo if blender wasn't up to task, then Maya, then Max. Assuming that I could get the right artists

As it happens I am in the process of doing this for a side project at the moment

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In my experience with a small game studio several years ago, it did make the difference. $5,000US was around two weeks of artist time (we paid above average). More than two weeks was lost due to both a combination of lack of training (_all_ professional 3D artists know Max or Maya, only a tiny subset seem to know Blender) and due to various issues with exporters and plugin development (at the time, Blender had just released its new Python API but had zero documentation on it and all howtos and videos were on the old version, but the newer version was require some features...). $5,000 would have been a _very cheap_ price to pay up front to avoid all that. If I could go back in time, I'd be willing to spend 3x that much.

That's not to say that the future can't be all Blender. It needs to put documentation as a primary goal (don't make a release with any single piece of the UI, feature set, or API is not properly documented, period) and it needs to do waaay better at propaganda in schools. Students getting tech certs or degrees prefer Max or Maya in many cases because that's what they were taught in school. If they were taught Blender as their primary tool, they'd probably prefer that.

Could you back it up with some hard data
- how much you lost using Blender?
- how much you would gain if you used Maya?